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It all started when two simple, white, middle-class South Africans found freedom in powerful servanthood and unconditional love.

George & Carolyn Snyman, founders of Hands at Work in Africa

As is often the case when God is at work, Hands at Work started in the most unexpected and unassuming way. George and Carolyn Snyman were a seemingly ordinary, white, middle-class couple who started their young married life in a leafy suburb of Pretoria, South Africa’s capital, at the height of the Apartheid era. “We just wanted to live a ‘normal’ life,” George says. George worked in the rapidly evolving IT industry and Carolyn in the finance sector. When they became parents, Carolyn decided to stay at home with the children. Steering clear of political involvement or racial intolerance, they went about life quietly.

Then, quite suddenly, George radically met Christ. The Snymans had been nominal Christians and attended church most Sundays. “I grew up a ‘Christian’,” George says, “but this time I met Jesus face to face!” He wasn’t seeking Christ, but when He burst into George’s life he was completely transformed. Shortly after his encounter with Christ, Carolyn also surrendered her life to Jesus. “Everything changed in our lives,” George remembers. “The way we viewed money, our friends, our time. Everything changed!” Carolyn testifies to George’s metamorphosis: “He couldn’t drive past people standing on the side of the road. He would often bring all sorts of people off the streets home with him. People he’d passed on his way home from work.” Their friends thought they had gone crazy, but they simply did as they had read in the Bible.

At around this time George met a black pastor named Hezekiah from Hillbrow, the inner city of Johannesburg. Together they visited black townships on weekends. George was exposed to a great deal of suffering amongst the poor. Faced with this reality, George and Carolyn started grappling with what it meant to be a Christian in an affluent, white suburb whilst, simultaneously, so much hardship was unfolding in South Africa’s marginalised townships. “Carolyn and I would go to the [white] church where we got saved and we’d love it there, but when I tried to talk to the people about what I had seen, it was as if they could not understand it,” he recalls.

As the Snyman’s conviction grew, so did their unsettledness. They soon realised that the trajectory of their privileged lives could never accommodate a response to the poor and destitute. “We realised that everything that seemed to give us security, were the very things that kept us away from dealing with the poverty,” George says.

Reaching a tipping point after a few years, George and Carolyn decided to give up their comfortable existence. They sold their home, packed their belongings into their car and, with a mere US $20 per month to support their family of five, they made the four-hour journey to the Africa School of Missions on the outskirts of White River. “It was fun and liberating to just give all of our stuff away to whomever wanted it!” Carolyn says.

Three years later, during his final year as student of theology and development, George decided to walk through Africa. Using the most basic local transport and often traveling on foot, through Southern Africa: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi and Zambia. Staying in impoverished villages he was faced, for the first time, with the seemingly hidden suffering of communities that were being devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Worse, even, than the suffering he’d known in Johannesburg. George started wrestling with what the Church’s response to poverty and suffering should be. “I remember sitting in a local taxi in Zambia watching a young, very sick woman holding a baby who was just skin and bone,” George recalls. “And I thought, who would help them? Where is Christ in this situation? Does He care? Does He want me to do something? My heart was crushed by what I saw and I came home sick, broke and disillusioned. I didn’t know what to do.”

Once they’d completed their studies, the family traveled to the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal, infamous for its high rates of HIV/AIDS and violence. They started serving, simply, by feeding children who were scavenging for food on rubbish dumps. “And that’s how we started out,” he says. “Wherever we went we found people, mainly young people in their twenties, dying in their huts. We did not understand what was happening and it took some time before we learned more about AIDS. Nobody spoke about it, especially not the Church. Everyone just continued with life while thousands of people were dying.”

I learned the names of the people dying and it became personal to me. They told me their stories and fears. All I could do was cry with them and pray for them. Of course, I also buried them all. There was a time when we had no money and I buried people in blankets

— George Snyman

An elderly Zulu woman named Glory discipled George during these years and she taught him that following Christ meant being a servant. She also taught him that a relationship is the foundation on which to build the Kingdom of God. Both these lessons became part of the core values at Hands at Work years later. “I learned the names of the people dying and it became personal to me,” George says. “They told me their stories and fears. All I could do was cry with them and pray for them. Of course, I also buried them all. There was a time when we had no money and I buried people in blankets [instead of coffins].”

When they had been living in Natal for a few years, they were invited to head up the first home-based care organisation in Masoyi community. Knowing nothing about home-based care, this adventurous pair again rolled up their sleeves and went about caring for people: bathing, praying for and preparing meals for them. Soon after Masoyi Home-Based Care had been birthed, USAID – whilst conducting its rapid appraisal in Southern Africa – deemed the organisation a best-practice model earning their efforts generous media coverage.

George and Carolyn soon realised that the project and its success would become another idol and so, again, felt the nudge to move on from Masoyi Home-Based Care. “We had to let it go,” he says. Instead of creating one large organisation limited to the northeastern corner of South Africa, the Snymans decided to replicate the model across Southern Africa.

As medical research provided better medication for people with AIDS to stay alive, George and Carolyn started to focus more on orphan care. “They are a lost generation, growing with 180 000 new orphans each month. It’s clear and undeniable: the Bible clearly states that these orphans should be cared for by Christians,” George says. “We are convinced that the Church is the only answer to this pandemic.”

As Hands at Work was birthed, local and international volunteers joined George and Carolyn in their venture and George recognised that the same paradigm shift he had experienced, was playing out in volunteers’ lives. It became an unwavering principle of the Hands at Work motto: that it exists not only to help the Church in Africa respond to the Biblical mandate to look after the poor, but that the Hands family would be a prophetic voice, stirring the Church across the world to consider their lifestyles. “I saw so many lives changing as Christians from outside Africa came to serve, and in doing that they discovered Christ more deeply than they'd ever known. In fact, many found Christ for the first time in Africa,” George says. “It was never the government’s responsibility to care for the orphan and the widow, but Christians’.”

We are before we do.

“We have a saying at Hands,” George adds. “We say we are before we do.” At Hands at Work a dream is being realised: that of a truly multi-cultural community where individual preferences have been laid down at the door and a Kingdom culture has, instead, been adopted. A culture of servanthood. Together this community now works towards a common goal, to see 100,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa, children who would otherwise have no hope, cared for. And it all started when two simple, white, middle-class South Africans found freedom in powerful servanthood and unconditional love.

10 Moments That Shaped Hands at Work

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Nurses for Africa sends teams of nurses from North America to Hands at Work in Africa for two weeks. They provide much needed clinics in our communities where there is little medical care available or accessible. They teach the #PrimaryCaregivers and #CareWorkers basic health care so that they can support the vulnerable that they are caring for. They do amazing work in helping to bring relief to those who are suffering from malaria and other diseases. ⠀
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Pray for the Nurses for Africa teams who are coming in 2018. Ask God to open their hearts and minds to what He wants to do in and through them while they are in Africa.

"I wasn't quite sure what I was getting myself into when I went to the gathering, but I was looking forward to learning about what it meant to advocate for Hands at Work. What I wasn't expecting was to be completely challenged while I was there. I wasn't expecting God to touch my life in the way He did. This weekend has challenged me to make some changes - not just in the way I advocate for the most vulnerable - but with my home life too. One of the big things that stood out for me from the gathering is leaving a legacy and what that means. I realised that my role as a mom is really important and that I need to make sure I'm passing the love of Jesus and God, and the work that we are doing in Africa, to my kids.”⠀ - Nicole, International #Advocate (#US) ⠀
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When people come to Africa, many of them experience Jesus in new and profound ways and bring back a seed of hope to their home country. At the end of last year, advocates of Hands at Work in the US gathered for a weekend of seeking God’s heart as they discern how to faithfully plant that seed and grow it across the US.⠀
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"But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant." – Matthew 20:26⠀ ⠀
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#Scripture #ChristAsOurFoundation

FRIDAY | Going Deeper is one of our four rotating Friday meetings. It is a time of teaching from members of the Hands leadership to help refocus ourselves on Christ and His calling for us. The teaching is based upon our Core Values and the Biblical foundations of who we are.⠀
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Thank you for joining us this week!

THURSDAY | Individuals are invited to join a time of prayer. Where they can come and intercede on behalf of others and share prayer request for themselves.

WEDNESDAY | The Hands Community is broken into smaller groups who meet, share and fellowship in various homes. These groups exist to deepen relationships, facilitate spiritual growth, and create a safe environment for individuals to share openly.⠀
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#Family

TUESDAY | All ladies come together to commit their personal and global needs to God and praise Him for answered prayer. This is a time to minister to one another and to experience growth as different ladies take turns leading.⠀
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#Pray

The whole community meets together to commit the week and our work to God in prayer and to spend time together. Small groups take turns facilitating, focusing on what they feel is important for our family at that time through the use of scripture, prayer, and worship. We also spend part of this time on family announcements: celebrating birthdays, praying for those traveling, and communicating news. Monday mornings are more than just prayer meetings – they are family time!⠀
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This morning we were praying for our children and #CareWorkers in Matsinho Community, #Mozambique.

Gathering together on a daily basis is an integral part of the community of Hands at Work in Africa.They are where smaller communities are knit closer together and individuals begin to look out for one another. The Hands Community is built on the foundation of Christ and we are called to express our worship, prayers, and faith together as a community. ⠀
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This week, join the Hands at Work community as we gather together. ⠀
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#Community #Worship

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40 Days of Prayer is an active reminder of our brothers and sisters in Africa, and the connection we have. Often, in the busyness of life I lose sight of who gives me life. Sometimes I wonder, why does God allow some things to happen? ⠀
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Through prayer and meditation, I’m reminded of this: it’s not our circumstances that define us, but how Christ continues to help us overcome them. As I prepare for 40 Days of Prayer, God continues to challenge me to remember others who are suffering and ultimately, Christ’s suffering on the cross as I reflect on scriptures like: ⠀
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“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” ⠀
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Taylor Kim, International #Advocate (#US) reflects on the upcoming 40 Days of Prayer.

Join us in 40 Days of Prayer for Africa's Vulnerable Children and Hands at Work from February 14th to April 1st 2018.⠀
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#Pray

Our vision for #LifeCentres are for them to be a place of life and encouragement to the most vulnerable children. When international volunteers visit, they play a part in this vision.

#HolyHomeVisits are essential to the Hands at Work vision of a Life Centre. A home visit is beneficial, not just in assessing and understanding the external needs, but in spending quality time with a child and his or her family, therefore bringing them value and worth. Home visits may carry a high personal cost of time, emotion, and energy, but like the gospel, they bring transformation.

"When volunteer Care Workers from the Temitope Community Based Organisation and the Hands at Work local office team in Lagos, #Nigeria met Abigail*, she was a severely malnourished 3 year old who had difficulty walking. Due to the consistent care and love of the Care Workers, today she's a different child."⠀ ⠀
Dan Waspe, International Volunteer (#UK)⠀
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Meanwhile in Africa: Season 3⠀
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Join us on Monday, January 29th, for the first episode of season 3! Every Monday, listen to George Snyman, co-founder of Hands at Work, share a new 3 minute message about serving the poor in Africa. Link in bio.